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I’m glad we’ve all agreed to stop watching Woody Allen movies, to delete R. Kelly’s songs from our music libraries. But I also think we need to stop hanging out with the rapists we actually know.

Taking a stand against awful celebrities is important: it sends a clear message to our communities that we won’t tolerate violence. Cutting out of our lives people we never actually knew, though, is a lot easier than refusing to tolerate the abusers that surround us. I’m not talking here about survivors who struggle to leave bad people. I’m talking about the friends, the relatives who decide not to “take a side,” and in doing so, firmly side with rape culture.

The part of Dylan Farrow’s open letter to Allen that hit closest to home for me was when she called out the people who have continued to work with her father despite knowledge of his abuse. When she named Diane Keaton, we might just have heard a movie star’s names, another player in a glamorous world divorced from our won. But for Farrow, Keaton is a real person, a figure from her childhood who chose an abuser over a young girl in need.

We talk often of a “culture of silence” that enables sexual violence, but when I was in college, everyone in my broader social circle knew who the rapists were. The information traveled in whispered paths, and took time to make its way through the community, but people knew which of their friends had assaulted their other friends, often how it had happened, often the same names coming up again and again. People knew.

And you know what? They kept hanging out. They kept going to rapists’ parties, the good ones with lots of free booze, and in return invited over these assailants along with their victims. Sometimes, they dated their friends’ abusers: He wouldn’t do that to me. I once stole a picture of my assailant off a close friend’s fridge because I couldn’t bear to see it hanging there right next to a photo of me.

The campus grew smaller and smaller for survivors, now restricted not only by our attempts to avoid our assailants but to avoid the friends who tolerated them. And we heard every excuse. He has a girlfriend now. I don’t know what happened. It’s not my business. But every rationalization boiled down to a belief that convenience, a desire never to feel uncomfortable or deprived, trumped any moral responsibility – as though we can opt in or out of the repercussions of our actions, as though we can choose to move through the world apolitically with no effect on others.

I spend a lot of time trying to convince the federal government to enforce Title IX, but my honest belief is that social ostracism could do more than our current laws. My senior year, I saw a known repeat offender question his treatment of women for the first time because he wasn’t invited to a big party thrown by one of his victim’s friends. Imagine the harm we could have prevented if we had stopped inviting him sooner.

Skip the next Woody Allen movie. Support Dylan Farrow. But we also all need to make the inconvenient choices in our own worlds when the personal costs are greater both for us and for the survivor. Fighting rape culture is hard. That’s why we have to do it.

New Haven, CT

Alexandra Brodsky is an editor at Feministing.com, student at Yale Law School, and founding co-director of Know Your IX, a national legal education campaign against campus gender-based violence. Alexandra has written for publications including the New York Times, the Atlantic, the Guardian, and the Nation, and she has spoken about violence against women and reproductive justice on MSNBC, ABC, NBC, CBS, CNN, FOX, and NPR. Through Know Your IX, she has organized with students across the country to build campuses free from discrimination and violence, developed federal policy on Title IX enforcement, and has testified at the Senate. At Yale Law, Alexandra focuses on antidiscrimination law and is a member of the Veterans Legal Services Clinic. Alexandra is committed to developing and strengthening responses to gender-based violence outside the criminal justice system through writing, organizing, and the law. Keep an eye out for The Feminist Utopia Project, co-edited by Alexandra and forthcoming from the Feminist Press (2015).

Alexandra Brodsky is an editor at Feministing.com, student at Yale Law School, and founding co-director of Know Your IX.

We interrupt our general policy of ignoring Donald Trump’s presidential campaign for a quick reminder that spousal rape is illegal.

Yesterday, The Daily Beast reported on old allegations, which are included in a 1993 biography of Trump, by his now ex-wife, Ivana, that he once violently raped her. Contacted for comment for the article, Michael Cohen, special counsel at The Trump Organization, offered this:

“You’re talking about the frontrunner for the GOP, presidential candidate, as well as a private individual who never raped anybody. And, of course, understand that by the very definition, you can’t rape your spouse.”

The cover of this week’s New York Magazine shows photographs of 35 of the 46 women who have publicly accused Bill Cosby of drugging and assaulting them.

By featuring the faces of all the accusers who’ve come forward in one place, the image — which includes one empty chair — is a powerful statement itself. And the accompanying article includes first-person accounts from all 35 of these brave women, who range in age from early 20s to 80.

Right now the New York site is down thanks to a hacker attack by someone who “hates NYC” but it should be back up later today. In the meantime, here’s an archived version of the ...

The cover of this week’s New York Magazine shows photographs of 35 of the 46 women who have publicly accused Bill Cosby of drugging and assaulting them.

In 2002, a ground-breaking study found that the majority (63 percent) of campus rapists were serial offenders, with each repeat perpetrator committing six rapes on average. David Lisak’s finding has remained a major talking point among lawmakers, reporters, and activists ever since.Nine in 10 rapes are perpetrated by repeat offenders. If we can only catch those criminals and incarcerate them, we’ll dramatically reduce violence in our communities.

This week, a new study published in JAMA Pediatrics challenged Lisak’s conclusion that most college rapists are repeat perpetrators. The study found that of the men who reported committing rape, only some 25 percent said they had done so over multiple years — in comparison with Lisak’s 63 percent. It also ...

In 2002, a ground-breaking study found that the majority (63 percent) of campus rapists were serial offenders, with each repeat perpetrator committing six rapes on average. David Lisak’s finding has remained a major talking point among lawmakers, ...